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Morning Dakka

As stated my 9 year old son read the Wimpy Kid books and loved the idea of the D&D game they play in there. Being a Geek Dad I told him how its based on D&D and that there is a starter box. To my surprise he then went to my Friendly Local Games Shop (Thanks Battlequest Games in Horsham) and bought it with his own money. Over the Christmas Hols he made new Characters and this weekend we are going to play through our first scenario.

I will probably act as the GM but, and here is the shocker, I have never played a pen and Paper RPG before.

We normally have father and son games of Space Hulk (new release), Dreadball and once I have it assembled, Deadzone but this is new territory for us. I have 4 boys in total so board games like this are great to get some family time all together and I am hoping all the boys get along with this. My 9 year old is the eldest but the others like to get involved too.

My question is this, once he has played through the opening scenario, whats next? Do I have to do lots of prep work and make new encounters or is there a resource book with pre made adventures? He is 9 so i would rather be able to react quickly so a new adventure book would be better.

Any advice in starting a D&D obsession will be greatly recieved.

Thanks Dakka.

What version are you using? I know if you're running 4th edition, they have some pre made campaigns. If you're going to use those, "Keep on the Shadowfell" is a good place to start.

Preparing stuff in advance is probably a good idea. Maybe not the entire campaign but some stuff to keep them busy. The players' actions can also help shape a story and what happens next (ex. The heroes find the treasure which is a gold lamp. Someone rubs the lamp and an evil genie pops out!)

I've never been a GM so I don't know how well my advice will help but I hope it does!
Have fun!

There are pre-made adventures for practically every game system out there. The Red Box is for 4th Edition DnD, once he's finished up with that scenario, you can either buy one of the pre-made adventures that Wizards of the Coast makes, or you can make up your own adventures. If you wish to use monsters other than the ones provided in the box you will have to grab a Monster Manual for 4th edition, or w/e the DnD Essentials version is since DnD isn't under the Open Gaming License for that edition (sadly :-\).

The prep work can be as little or as much as you want it to be. In my bi-monthly game, I spend about an hour of prep time for every 2 hours we intend on playing. I grabbed a Chessex grid from Paizo.com (they had a misprinted one for like 6 bucks and it works 90% of the time), and I draw the maps on that, but there are map tiles made by Wizards of the Coast for DnD, Paizo also publishes their Game Master tiles that feature locations or are specific to a pathfinder (different P&P RPG) adventure path.

The DM's booklet in the red box should have a blurb on where to take the adventure after the starting scenario.

My advice would be to read over the scenario and cut out 75% of the monsters in any given scenario. The Challenge Rating (CR) on a monster is how you measure it against a 4 person party of that level. So a CR 1 monster is a even challenge for a 4 person part at level 1. There are monsters that are like 1/4 and 1/3, etc... so he should be able to handle those in a one on one situation. Alternatively, if he has any friends that are interested, you could always help them create characters and run their little adventuring party through the scenario.

Thanks Guys

Skavenlord, yes I am using 4th Ed and I have just downloaded the PDF for Keep on the Shadowfell. Cheers for the pointer.

Alfndrate, Thanks for the info. It cleared some of the Player/DM interaction stuff I had. I am reading through the Shadowfell encounter and it looks like the very thing I was after. It takes alot of the burden that I was worried about. Busy Dad with not alot of spare time means I would not have long to invest in a bespoke encounter. If the boys get hooked I will leave it to them to get creative and maybe I can be on the other side of the screen.

I will post back after the weekend to say how we got on. Never know, I might even rope in the wife. Make a family thing out of this.

Again, thanks for the pointers.

Good for him. Teach him our nerdy ways.

Mooks wrote:
Thanks Guys

Skavenlord, yes I am using 4th Ed and I have just downloaded the PDF for Keep on the Shadowfell. Cheers for the pointer.

Alfndrate, Thanks for the info. It cleared some of the Player/DM interaction stuff I had. I am reading through the Shadowfell encounter and it looks like the very thing I was after. It takes alot of the burden that I was worried about. Busy Dad with not alot of spare time means I would not have long to invest in a bespoke encounter. If the boys get hooked I will leave it to them to get creative and maybe I can be on the other side of the screen.

I will post back after the weekend to say how we got on. Never know, I might even rope in the wife. Make a family thing out of this.

Again, thanks for the pointers.

No problem, I started way back when I was 11, my friends and I didn't have a fancy starter box (though the Red Box could be better, but that's neither here nor there), or a dad willing to show us the ropes. Our first few adventures were brutal, but it's definitely something that's stuck with me for the past decade and a half. Made some of my best friends through gaming.

Your kid has a lot of fun to look forward to.

If, after playing through it for a bit, your son (or you maybe) realize that there are quirks about the game that bug you, or you and he are burned out on running 4th edition games in your house, check around for the DnD Encounters events. They're weekly games put on by a DM in a public setting (generally a FLGS), they are pre-made, free to play, campaigns that run for several weeks. The individual sessions are designed to basically start and conclude an adventure in a single 3 to 4 hour session, with the larger arc being solved over the weeks of the campaign. I've never played in a DnD Encounter night, but I have played in the Pathfinder Society which is basically the same thing. It might be a good way to learn the game for the two of you as well, and it takes the prep time off of you so you can the youngin' can focus on playing the game

Have fun! Hope to hear how it went!

“You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.” – Obi-Wan Kenobi

It is well and truly on now.

RPGs come in all flavors; Star Wars, Firefly, 40K, Warhammer Fantasy RPG, Star Trek, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Almost every major franchise has a RPG game.

You are coming in at the cusp of a perfect storm of role-playing. DnD NEXT (5th Edition) is launching in the next year or so. That in no way invalidates 4th Edition. Heck me and my crew still play 3rd/3.5/3.75 under the Pathfinder name.

That is actually what makes RPGS such a blast. You are not limited to what the game companies are printing right now.

You only need some dice and the rulebook(s) and your imagination and you will literally have everything you need to play forever.

Purchasing beyond the initial rulebook(s) is totally optional and is not forced upon you.

I wish I had started playing when I was nine.

Lucky guy. I remember most of my childhood before I got to high school was reading information on all these cool tabletop games and RPGs, then never getting to actually play them since nobody i knew was interested in that kind of thing.

As a pretty experienced 4th edition GM I will say this: that game is one of the most superbly balanced combat systems I have ever seen in an RPG. If you want reasonably complicated tactical combat, 4e is the way to go. I love it for exactly that reason since I got into RPGs through tabletop wargames and am a real crunch monkey.

That said, when it comes to "out of combat" situations or ways you can make your character unique and shape the world, the rules don't really have a lot for you in that regard. As much as I hate to admit it, the earlier editions of D&D are a lot better for that (but incredibly not as balanced and require a lot more system mastery to not build trap characters).

At any rate, as far as general DM advise you pretty much just have to figure out your own style as far as what kinds of adventures you want to run and how you want to prep. I usually start with a "big idea" of how I want the campaign plot to go (this can be a much more limited affair if you want to only run a limited series of games) then I pretty much just design interesting and challenging "set-piece encounters", then figure a way to make the plot fit the overall theme while including the encounters I designed. I don't spend much time actually concentrating on details or doing preparations except for the encounters; preferring to wing a lot of the overall storytelling aspect.

That's because I know I work best with story light improv and casual players. If I wanted to run a serious character driven investigative adventure I'd be way outside my comfort zone and know I needed to spend a lot more time preparing.

At any rate my main advise here is figure out your style, and know the rules of the game. If you know the rules well enough to make the system work for you then you can worry about more important stuff like making sure your players are having a good time.

Lastly, don't worry. I got Shanghaied into running a 4e campaign as the very first RPG related thing I ever did, and I figured it out after a few sessions.

Wow, sounds like you're going to make some great memories with this!
Some general advice, I hope none of this is patronizing!
- D'n'D is a co-op game about telling a story rather than a competitive game where there is a winner and a loser.
-If a situation isn't covered by the rules, that's cool. Just figure out what modifier is appropriate, set a DC (target number), and then roll and see if it succeeds or fails. A roleplaying game allows potentially unlimited creativity in how you interact with the world the GM presents.
- The basic adventures provided by Dungeons and Dragons are pretty combat orientated. For a group of boys that sounds alright! Have fun and don't worry too much about the technical aspects of the rules. 4th edition is a fairly polarizing rules set, some love it some hate it and will suggest others. I think it is well suited to younger players due to being fairly clear and laid out, and forgiving at low levels.
-Maps are really useful - if you can invest in a squared dry erase grid, you'll be really happy!
-Monsters/players are easily represented by tokens and so on.
-Alternatively, when I started and for about a decade after that, we just imagined everything in our heads. That's a little harder in 4th, so a map makes things a lot easier.

If you want a source of cheap adventures for 4th edition, it's worth checking out a Dungeons and Dragons Insider account. Costs about $10 for a month, and you get access to a huge library of pregenerated content, easily enough to run 5 campaigns with little adjustment. You can just subscribe for 1 month, download everything you like the look of as a PDF, and then let the subscription lapse.
Alternatively, there is a string of adventures connected to the "keep on the shadowfell" plot which bring the players right the way through. They generally come with poster maps and so on as well. Going this route might be more expensive than the DDI subscription in the long run, though.

Congratulations, your son has demonstrated intelligence and taste a cut above the wider population. It is now up to you to nurture this precious gift. Right now, that means you will step into the role of the Dungeon Master.

Luckily, you are somewhat prepared for this massive responsibility by virtue of being a parent. Being a DM is a lot like parenting except that you are now in charge of the entire universe. Well, not the entire universe. You actually can't control the players, or in this case, your kids.

I told you it was like parenting.

This is the first and most important lesson for DMs: never never never attempt to control the players. Now that means more than letting them do whatever they want. It means making sure their actions have consequences in the game.

DM: What do you want to do?

Player: Um, jump off that cliff.

DM: You can do that but you will take 1d6 damage for every ten feet you fall.

Once players know their actions have consequences, they will start to get invested in decision making. As the DM, you can encourage this by asking them not only "what do you want to do?" but also "how do you plan to do that?"

Let the players work out their plan. If they ask "can we do that?" then you should figure out a way to let them try to do it. If you can't find something in the rulebook, just make it up. But whenever you make anything up, be sure to tell the players what they will have to roll in order to help them evaluate their decisions.

Player: I want to throw the rock past the goblin to distract him. Can I do that?

DM: You can try anything. Roll 1d4. On a 2 or better, the goblin will notice the noise of the rock and go investigate.

These few principles are actually more important than anything you are likely to read in the rulebook your son purchased. If you can apply them along with the stuff in the rulebook, both you and your son will probably have a much better time.

 Manchu wrote:

This is the first and most important lesson for DMs: never never never attempt to control the players. Now that means more than letting them do whatever they want. It means making sure their actions have consequences in the game.

DM: What do you want to do?

Player: Um, jump off that cliff.

DM: You can do that but you will take 1d6 damage for every ten feet you fall.

Reminds me of a time where my players had to figure out how to get down from a tower. I forget exactly how it transpired, but they got one person down to the bottom and their plan was to have everyone else jump off the tower one at a time and the one guy on the bottom would catch them in a bag of holding, then pull them out...

Many acrobatics checks were rolled that session. Only one failed. My dialogue was "ok, how many negative hit points is dead for you again? You're one away from that. That was awesome...but never try it again. I'm only letting it work once"

Same group later on in the campaign all jumped inside said bag of holding to avoid an explosion.

I loved that campaign.

When did weekends get so busy?

So update on my adventures with D&D 4th Ed...

My son had not fully made a Character with the Players handbook so we sat down together and made some new Heroes for our adventures. It went well and we even got his younger brothers to play a bit too. The other boys are 6 and 3 so it was fun to see how they did. More dice on the floor than on the table but excitement is building.

For myself I thought it was time to get to grip with the DM handbook ready for next weekend. On first look all seems well and I can put the good advice given by Manchu, Da Boss and Dementedwombat into context. I can see that I am a narrator for my sons adventures and also that I can give myself a little Artistic licence for what I expect to be a fair amount of crazy solutions to given problems.

Unfortunately we are a busy family so we could only spend roughly an Hour and we managed to make some characters and play though the solo encounter at the end of the book. It was fun and the boys are still eager to play next weekend. I am looking forward to it myself and I hope that we can play through as a party and take the fight onwards through some more encounters.

Again, thank you for all advice given and I am hoping that this is that start of a new weekend hobby.

One last request, if this does take off, I enjoy painting Mini's but I am more Sci-fi (Scibor, Puppets War) so who makes some good fantasy types for D&D?

Glad your first session was a good one!

As for your question, there are D&D miniatures (though they're already painted).

There are also LotR models and Warhammer Fantasy models (though those are likely quite expensive)

Wizards of the Coast made pre-painted plastic figs, but ended that line like a year ago.

Reaper makes tons of fantasy figures, and with the rollout of their Bones material, it's cheaper than ever to get orcs, goblins, characters, etc..

Any game company that has a fantasy-ish game will have plenty of figs to use. In my pirate game I was in until the DM did a Total Party Kill, I was using an Empire Witch Hunter model from GW for my heretical inquisitor.

Bones was made for this. Cheap, wide variety of heroes and monsters.

As you collect a 'bestiary' or 'hero gallery' you will find yourself collecting a lot of different lines.

Another vote for the Bones. That's what my RPG club at school uses. And a side note, they're one piece plastic and pretty much indestructible, so they're "kid safe" (Not sure how much that applies but it might be a big deal).

Mooks wrote:
One last request, if this does take off, I enjoy painting Mini's but I am more Sci-fi (Scibor, Puppets War) so who makes some good fantasy types for D&D?

Reaper's newish line of "Bones" miniatures would be great. Not only are they relatively cheap but the material they are made out of somehow makes the paintjob exceedingly resilient. There are vids on YT of guys bending the models without the paint cracking.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh dear, should have read the rests of the posts first ...

Thanks all. Had a look at the Reaper site and I have to say I am loving the Finder tool they have. makes sense with a large catalogue like theirs. The relativly low cost means I would not mind them having a go at painting. Seems like i might be throwing money at Reaper soon. I rememeber this company from their massive Kickstarter. If i had known that my son would do this I could have got myself an awsome deal.

I have found a sheet of paper mini's that will keep me going through this starting phase as this phase may not last so I want to keep expenditure low for a bit.

One more note about Bones: the material they are made of does not need to be primed before painting.

The Pathfinder Battles minis are good as well, though I find them best for PC's and individual monsters.

There's a ton of free stuff on Drive Thru RPG's site - papercraft floorplans, buildings, modules, background booklets, etc

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/

DOnt forget, D&D or any RPG, is about the STORY. As GM you are telling you players a story, but they get to make the choices. You can rail road them (as in, give you players very few choices, like the king wants you to go and kill the goblin over lord or the king will lock you in prison!), or you can leave it as mainly player led.

With a 9 year old, I would imagine that you will want to basically make the large story choices for him, whilst letting him figure out the rest. WIth adults, you might give them a quest and let them choose how to go about solving it. With a young kid you would probably need more help (give them maps, have non player characters give them good advice etc).

BUt remeber, its a story telling medium. THe dice are just to add spice.

" A father sits down at the dining table and looks out to his front. He sees his young children sat before him. A 9 Year old Elf Fighter called Dawnblade, a 6 Year old Dwarf Fighter called Chobham and a 3 year old Dragonborn wizard called Dragony. They are no longer just school children, they are adventurers.
Their adventure this sunny saturday afternoon will take them to new destinations and strange locations. They will meet exciting characters and will probably choose to kill them."

yep, we sat down this weekend and took our first step into a Goblin infested dungeon and i can honestly say that they enjoyed it. Attention spans meant that we only played for about an hour but that was longer than i thought Dragony would last. The boys were happy to play along and enjoyed the story telling nature of the game and I enjoyed it because their decisions often just revolved around killing the bad guys. No tricky situations where I had to consult a rule book to see what kind of check they should be making. We just want the treasure and we want to have combat.

We finished a few encounters and the boys loved rolling and dice and moving around the maps. It will take us months to finish a whole campaign but its will be fun going through it. Hopefully this has started something new.

Chobham and Dragony went off to play lego in their room after we had a break for lunch but Dawnblade then played a round of Deadzone with me! I recently finished painting my Enforcer team and I have a team of stage 3 Plague painted. Result.

Now if I can just find where the D20 ended up after Dragony did his final roll?

Great result! Now you'll need to buy them more Castle Lego, though

For the dice. Look inside the speakers.

Sounds like the evenings my dad would play Heroquest with us. Those were good times! I feel like I learned a lot those evenings. Good on you.